RUTHFULLY YOURS

Finally, someone is in control.

For too long, Americans have been free to come and go as they pleased. They could climb into their cars and drive anywhere they wanted, at any time of day, for any reason they chose, or for no reason at all. And they never had to justify themselves to anyone. It was a deplorable situation.

A fifth of the U.S. workforce has been put out of work by the new edicts

If a store was open for business, a person could just walk right in and shop to his heart’s content. If it was too crowded for his taste, he was free to go elsewhere. Or he could go about his business cheek by jowl with other customers, possibly exposing himself to all manner of illness. Worse, if he had children with him, or children at home, he risked exposing them to whatever horrible disease he might pick up at the store. Deplorable.

He could go to a Walmart, or a dentist, or a barber shop, or a restaurant, or even a church for God’s sake, and it was left entirely up to him to decide whether the risk of contracting an illness was worth whatever benefit he stood to gain. But such decisions are too important to be left to any old Tom, Dick, or Harry. It’s about time someone put a stop to all this.

Yes, a fifth of the U.S. workforce has been put out of work by the new edicts. Tens of thousands of small businesses have been destroyed, along with their owners’ life savings. Collateral damage. It was unavoidable and well worth the price if it meant that someone would finally be put into control, that someone would finally have the authority to do what’s necessary to keep us SAFE. Because that’s all that matters in the end.

I’ve just come from a gas station mini-mart that is not much bigger than a phone booth. It had six customers in it. Outrageous. Before that I stopped in at a shoe store, which I was surprised to find was even open. But, then, “open” is a relative term. Although the place is large enough to play basketball in, the proprietors are limited by State edict to three customers at a time. Any additional customers must stand in line inside the door until someone else exits. Now that’s SAFETY. And that’s control. And it’s about time.

Today, such parents would be prosecuted for child abuse

It’s hard to believe that there was a time in America when parents would set out into the wilderness in covered wagons with their children, risking injury or death every mile of the way, exposing themselves—and their children—to disease, blizzards, droughts, wild animals, outlaws, and hostile Indians. Today, such parents would be prosecuted for child abuse. And well they should be. But no one was in control back then.

I’m guessing that it will be a long time before we return to the bad old days of everyone’s just going about his business willy-nilly, if we ever do. Because someone just has to be in control. And now that the Gavin Newsoms and Gretchen Whitmers of the world finally do have control, I suspect that they are not going to surrender it without a fight, God bless ‘em.